"Wasting Light" by Foo Fighters | Grade: A | Best tracks: "White Limo," "Rope," "Dear Rosemary" & "Walk"
On the surface, Dave Grohl’s pretty careless.
Look no further than any one of the hilarious Foo Fighters’ music videos for “Low,” “Learn to Fly,” “Long Road to Ruin” or even the new “White Limo,” and it’s more than apparent that Grohl has fun with his goofball antics.
But no matter how funny Grohl can be, murmurs always surface around the time of a new Foo Fighters’ record.
The inescapable shadow of Kurt Cobain’s death and Nirvana over Grohl has become as predictable as Nickelback.
Unfair as it may be, Grohl’s performance on the Foo Fighters’ “Wasting Light” reveals that he’s thriving in the darkness.
The band’s first album since 2007’s “Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace” puts a premium on heavy rock hooks, delivering a blistering 48-minute set where the Foo Fighters pull out all the stops on arguably their best record yet.
For the new record, the band recruited famed rock producer and former Garbage drummer Butch Vig to produce the record, and former guitarist Pat Smear returned to give the band a third strummer.
The album was recorded in Grohl’s own garage on analog, and due to the unforgiving nature of analog recording (there’s little or no digital editing involved when the album is mixed), “Wasting Light” is that much more impressive.
The dark shroud that has surrounded Grohl’s songwriting spills over into the music itself, and during many of the song intros, the Foo Fighters morph into an edgy, thrash-based metal band.
“White Limo” is the heaviest song ever in the entire Foo canon, and the shredding triumvirate of guitars pair well with Grohl’s most fearsome howl yet.
The hook-heavy tendencies in the songwriting are darkly satisfying—the lead single “Rope” is integrates the hard rock lead-in with the alt-rock sensibility Grohl and Co. are known for.
Tracks like “Arlandria” and “Dear Rosemary” (featuring former Hüsker Du member Bob Mould) are reminiscent of the band’s lighter times on “In Your Honor” and “There Is Nothing Left to Lose.” But even on the album’s pop leanings, Grohl still lets the black seep out—on “Back & Forth” he’s unapologetic (Now you’re on your own, one for the pages / Over the hill and through the ages / Does my heaven burn like hell on you?).
Former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic stars on “I Should Have Known,” a reunion that brings Grohl, his former bandmate and Vig back together for the first time since the three were recording Nirvana’s “Nevermind” in 1991. And serendipitously, the song seemingly strives for closure as Grohl sings Lay your hands in mine / Heal me one last time / Though I cannot forgive you yet / No I cannot forgive you yet / To leave my heart in debt.
On the album closer, “Walk,” the band comes together to find the light at the end of the tunnel. Out of the shadowy edge present throughout “Wasting Light,” the record’s final song is a ray of sunshine that is both powerful and fitting—the band takes flight in an alt-rock frenzy and Grohl hollers with bona fide conviction that he’s happy and he’s here to stay (I never wanna die / I’m dancing on my grave / I’m running through the fire / Forever, whenever).
Grohl has made a name for himself and while Cobain remains an enigma in his past, the former has surpassed the latter. Burdensome as it may be to have a grunge legend’s death looming over him, the Foo’s leading man copes with it in an outstanding, dialed-up performance on “Wasting Light.”
